When I originally played this back in 2011 (and I was young and full of hopes and dreams), I put down a lot of Skyward Sword's shortcomings and failings down to the fact that Nintendo were really leaning into the whole Motion Control thing. I didn't enjoy it (and this doesn't seem to be an unpopular option); it felt clunky, at times it barely worked, and it seemed like a lot of gameplay ideas had come from the interaction element first (Those boss keys - just why?). Twilight Princess, despite not being a great game overall, was vastly greater than this whilst being 5 years older. So hopeful me played through SS, and just...forgot about it. It came and went and the only things that stuck was that I severely hated the control system.
So now it's over 10 years later, and I can finally play it with traditional controls (and even in handheld mode!) - but as it turns out, the control scheme they decided to implement isn't much of an improvement. Swimming is still horrible to do. Flying is bad bad bad. Sword actions are spammy and gamebreaking in places. And then you delve deeper into the game and realise it wasn't only the motion controls that were dragging this down - there was plenty more on top of the game. This is (in terms of a Zelda game) just not good.
Let's go from the beginning, with a big one: The first 5 hours or so of this are straight up garbage. The tutorial sections are slow, even by Zelda's mind numbing standards, and you are constantly stopped to be told exactly what to do or where to go next. From getting woken up through to the end of the second temple, everything is just below par. The atmosphere and design of Faron's Wood just screams bland. The music is...there? But barely, there's nothing memorable here. The first temple might just be the worst introduction level I've played - it's just so dull and unwelcoming and tops it off with a horrible bossfight. You remember the Deku Tree in OoT being this strange and wonderul dungeon topped with a great Gohma fight? Yeah, you get none of that here - the whole thing is just by-the-book and boring.
But, once you breakthrough this and come out to the Lanayru Mines, things start to look up and the game begins to come together. There's some novel puzzles, sidequests start to open up and - despite the inane padding that's embedded throughout the game - there's fun to be had in a world coming to life. Reality hits, and then the game decides to send you back through the last three environments (oh, but now it's with a very slight twist) for the next three items. And also sprinkle some more useless tasks in here. Then - incredibly - you have to do it a third time. The amount of busy work and padding they've added in to increase the playtime is ridiculous and a horrible user experience. The fact it's so blatant about it is astounding; the game's not trying to hide the fact that you're required to prove your hero-ness(?) twice because the character said so? The justification for doing all this is paper thin at best and is trying to increases the size of an already small world.
And speaking of a bad user experience, one of the big changes for the HD release was that Fi could be ignored and cutscenes could be skipped. I must've not checked whatever box I needed to because she was constantly telling me the most obvious things about the room I just entered, or repeating what someone else told me immediately after talking to them. You're telling me I need to use this item for a puzzle as soon as I pulled it out of the chest? Wow! She's such a braindead personality for what should be an interesting character, but throw that potential away because she's going to point out something very obvious. And the amount of skippable cutscenes is extremely low. And I almost forgot one of the other big improvements - the easily moveable camera - being undone by the fact you have hold L to use it at all. Which means for the entire 25 hours you'll be playing this (that's a lot of padding) you'll be holding L to look around. And you also can't do anything else while holding L. What a strange decision.
At this point I could go on and on about it's many shortcomings - compared to other Zelda titles it has some really low lows throughout the game. There's some downright bizarre choices woven into the design and story and music - everywhere, in fact. And it's bad for 2011, never mind 2022!
Don't get me wrong, though, there's still some good here. It's still Zelda and scattered amongst the lows there's some real standout moments. This is probably my favourite design for Link & Zelda, and the supporting cast - whilst thin on the ground - are fun. Some temples and environments are really well done (the time stone mechanic is amazing and I really want more of that in the future), and the ending is fun. Motion controls do have some interesting implementations with the Beetle and aiming items, so it's not all bad. And lore wise it's also very interesting, and fits right into the existing timeline. Lastly, playing this at 60fps makes a ton of difference too - despite the games painting aesthetic really showing it's age at this point.
So back in 2011, it was easy to dismiss the overall shortcomings here as just a symptom of some crappy controls. But now we've got it in HD, and honestly I'm not sure why you'd play this over any other Zelda. TP is a formulaic Zelda that's better, WW does a grand world (with nothing in it) better, and OoT is a better traditional Zelda available on Switch. The only bullet point this has is the weird motion-turned-stick controls which end up breaking most fights as you can hit the stick faster than the game intended. The game's fairly in the middle in terms of fun, but as a Zelda adventure it's easily, easily towards the bottom of the pile. The HD re-release improves many things, but the original is so flawed it doesn't make much of a difference. You can do better.
So now it's over 10 years later, and I can finally play it with traditional controls (and even in handheld mode!) - but as it turns out, the control scheme they decided to implement isn't much of an improvement. Swimming is still horrible to do. Flying is bad bad bad. Sword actions are spammy and gamebreaking in places. And then you delve deeper into the game and realise it wasn't only the motion controls that were dragging this down - there was plenty more on top of the game. This is (in terms of a Zelda game) just not good.
Let's go from the beginning, with a big one: The first 5 hours or so of this are straight up garbage. The tutorial sections are slow, even by Zelda's mind numbing standards, and you are constantly stopped to be told exactly what to do or where to go next. From getting woken up through to the end of the second temple, everything is just below par. The atmosphere and design of Faron's Wood just screams bland. The music is...there? But barely, there's nothing memorable here. The first temple might just be the worst introduction level I've played - it's just so dull and unwelcoming and tops it off with a horrible bossfight. You remember the Deku Tree in OoT being this strange and wonderul dungeon topped with a great Gohma fight? Yeah, you get none of that here - the whole thing is just by-the-book and boring.
But, once you breakthrough this and come out to the Lanayru Mines, things start to look up and the game begins to come together. There's some novel puzzles, sidequests start to open up and - despite the inane padding that's embedded throughout the game - there's fun to be had in a world coming to life. Reality hits, and then the game decides to send you back through the last three environments (oh, but now it's with a very slight twist) for the next three items. And also sprinkle some more useless tasks in here. Then - incredibly - you have to do it a third time. The amount of busy work and padding they've added in to increase the playtime is ridiculous and a horrible user experience. The fact it's so blatant about it is astounding; the game's not trying to hide the fact that you're required to prove your hero-ness(?) twice because the character said so? The justification for doing all this is paper thin at best and is trying to increases the size of an already small world.
And speaking of a bad user experience, one of the big changes for the HD release was that Fi could be ignored and cutscenes could be skipped. I must've not checked whatever box I needed to because she was constantly telling me the most obvious things about the room I just entered, or repeating what someone else told me immediately after talking to them. You're telling me I need to use this item for a puzzle as soon as I pulled it out of the chest? Wow! She's such a braindead personality for what should be an interesting character, but throw that potential away because she's going to point out something very obvious. And the amount of skippable cutscenes is extremely low. And I almost forgot one of the other big improvements - the easily moveable camera - being undone by the fact you have hold L to use it at all. Which means for the entire 25 hours you'll be playing this (that's a lot of padding) you'll be holding L to look around. And you also can't do anything else while holding L. What a strange decision.
At this point I could go on and on about it's many shortcomings - compared to other Zelda titles it has some really low lows throughout the game. There's some downright bizarre choices woven into the design and story and music - everywhere, in fact. And it's bad for 2011, never mind 2022!
Don't get me wrong, though, there's still some good here. It's still Zelda and scattered amongst the lows there's some real standout moments. This is probably my favourite design for Link & Zelda, and the supporting cast - whilst thin on the ground - are fun. Some temples and environments are really well done (the time stone mechanic is amazing and I really want more of that in the future), and the ending is fun. Motion controls do have some interesting implementations with the Beetle and aiming items, so it's not all bad. And lore wise it's also very interesting, and fits right into the existing timeline. Lastly, playing this at 60fps makes a ton of difference too - despite the games painting aesthetic really showing it's age at this point.
So back in 2011, it was easy to dismiss the overall shortcomings here as just a symptom of some crappy controls. But now we've got it in HD, and honestly I'm not sure why you'd play this over any other Zelda. TP is a formulaic Zelda that's better, WW does a grand world (with nothing in it) better, and OoT is a better traditional Zelda available on Switch. The only bullet point this has is the weird motion-turned-stick controls which end up breaking most fights as you can hit the stick faster than the game intended. The game's fairly in the middle in terms of fun, but as a Zelda adventure it's easily, easily towards the bottom of the pile. The HD re-release improves many things, but the original is so flawed it doesn't make much of a difference. You can do better.